Look on her, if in aught she seems to thee
Like to thy wife. Step forth from grief to bliss.“[[29]]
[28]. From The Life and Death of Jason, by William Morris (Longmans).
[29]. From the Alcestis of Euripides, translated by Dr. A. S. Way (Loeb Classical Library: London, Heinemann).
Euripides: Medea
Only eighteen dramas are extant of the seventy-five which Euripides is known to have written. And an interesting small fact is that the two earliest of these surviving dramas are the Alcestis and the Medea, produced respectively in 438 B.C. and 431 B.C. Each of the two has a woman for the protagonist, and both have love for their central theme. To that extent therefore they are similar, and represent certain clear features of Euripidean drama as a whole.
We have already noted the poet’s interest in womanhood: his keen and careful study of feminine character. He was no less occupied with the influence of love in human life; but on both themes he was clear-eyed and penetrative, aspiring always to the ‘white star of truth.’ Therefore we do not find in his drama a troop of faultless women, moving in an atmosphere of romantic glamour; nor a treatment of love which reveals only the more beautiful aspects of it. He seems to have been content to acknowledge, as for instance in the Alcestis and the lost Andromeda, that life’s flowers do sometimes, given the right conditions, come to fair fruition. But he saw how often they are warped and blighted; and though he would not hide the grimmer facts, he was always careful to seek and show the cause of the aberration. Hence, though the truth of his presentation is sometimes merciless, and may have given colour to the contemporary gossip which called him a ‘woman-hater,’ one glance below the surface of his thought shows him to have been inspired by a nobler chivalry than that which is content to veil the facts of life in romantic illusion. So we find that although both the Alcestis and the Medea are preoccupied with the theme of love, there is a vivid contrast in the treatment of the theme, despite certain resemblances between the two dramas. It is true that both of the heroines are pre-eminent in devotion to the men with whom they are mated; and that the hero in each case moves on a plane from which he cannot reach the height of his wife’s spirit. But whilst on the one hand love takes possession of a gentle nature, and favoured by every circumstance of character and environment triumphs over death itself, in the case of Medea a wild soul spends itself recklessly for the object of its love, beats impotently against injustice, loses hold on sanity and sweet human ties, and is transformed into an avenging fury.
The story of Medea belongs to the old Argo legend, which was made into poetry by Apollonius Rhodius in the first century before Christ, and by our own Victorian poet Morris in The Life and Death of Jason.
Jason, the exiled heir to the throne of Iolchos, was reared by the centaur Chiron. Arrived at manhood, he determined to claim his right from his usurping uncle Pelias; and travelling to Iolchos on foot, he presented himself before the king minus a sandal. Now Pelias had been warned against a man who should come to him with one foot bare; and, moreover, he had no intention of yielding up the throne to his nephew. He therefore cast about for some means of ridding himself of Jason, and hit upon the plan of sending him on a wild and dangerous quest—to seek and bring the Golden Fleece from the barbarous land of Colchis. Jason gladly undertook the task: gathered the Greek heroes together and sailed with them in the good ship Argo.